Midnight Liturgy

[Jody Cacak]

A friend & I have been having a discussion the last few days about late night Liturgy. It seems one of the churches in town is doing away with their midnight services for Lent & Nativity in 2005 & is moving them to around 9am. This is due, in part, to some pressure the Priest is receiving from his parishioners who do not like to take their young families to late Liturgy. Personally, I don't think the priest should bow to the pressures of the parish, but my friend thinks that a good leader knows how to balance the wishes of the parishioners with traditions. I guess it's kind of a 2-part question:

#1. What is the tradition for midnight Liturgy in the Orthodox church?

#2. Should this priest be submitting to the wishes of his parish like this?

[Fr Aaron Warwick]

#1. In the Middle East, the Paschal service is often in the morning, not at midnight.

#2. I am incapable of judging this situation.

Aaron

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

#1. At Pascha one normally sees Liturgy served immediately after the Matins- ie after Midnight. One also encounters this from time to time at the Feast of the Nativity although it is much more common to see this in the morning. I also knew of a parish where the blessing was given by the bishop to do all Great Feasts on the evening before with Vespers/Matins (Vigil) & Liturgy. This was done as the priest worked during the day and thus there could not be Liturgy on a normal weekday.

An important point to realise however is that according to the Typikon the Divine Liturgy is not to be celebrated before sunrise (Nikol'ski Ustav, p.158) except for when Liturgy is combined with Vespers on the eve of Great Feasts such as Pascha or Nativity. Nikol'ski points out that in the more ancient way (both in reckoning time & length of Vigil) the Paschal Liturgy would still have actually kept to the same rule. Thus in monasteries in Greece & on Mt Athos where the ancient rule of Vigil is kept for Sundays & Great Feasts one always sees Liturgy served at break of day, not midnight. The reason why when night time Liturgy is served it is usually done so after midnight is to try as best as possible to keep to the above rule. So we could say that either way- in the morning or after midnight still keeps to the same rule. The only difference is a pastoral decision concerning exactly what time. And there is nothing wrong with this. Even Paschal Liturgies done in the morning let's say at 9 or 10 am can perhaps be seen as falling into this category (although this is the one Feast where the ancient practice of literally keeping Vigil through the night is kept in parishes- so one does lose something important by doing Liturgy in the morning).

#2 From all of the above we can see that much is left to pastoral discretion. This is only proper especially in today's world where people have jobs & children who go to school, etc.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Jody Boyd]

Thank you so much Fr Raphael

This makes much more sense to me now.

Humbly,
Jody